


All Her Thorns

by tuesday



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Gen, Horror, Implied Belle/Beast - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Transformation, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 12:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21208607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: The rose is beautiful when Belle first sees it, but deformed.





	All Her Thorns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).

> Written for the prompt: "The rose means something else - something sinister."
> 
> eta: I ... totally messed up names in this originally. To everyone who saw the original: yeah, that name thing was 100% my bad. It should be fixed now. /o\

The rose is beautiful when Belle first sees it, but deformed. Half of it is pristine and looks freshly plucked; the side opposite is withered like it's been set out to dry and is partway through its transformation. It sits under a glass bell jar. She wants to touch it.

The Beast arrives; Belle leaves.

But she remembers the rose, lush red on the left and creeping brown on the right.

*

The Beast saves her from wolves. He's injured. There's a moment where she wonders if he'll die of it—but he throws them all off. He limps back to the mansion. Blood drips red in the snow behind him like dropped rose petals.

*

The rose has chunks out of it. They look like tooth marks.

*

"What does the rose mean?" Belle wonders. 

It's magic. They told her so, but she knew even before anyone said a word. The rose has an ethereal beauty to it where it's not dark with decay; it can only be magic. The red bleeds down the glass. Something rotten lurks beneath.

"We don't know," Lumiere says.

"We don't want to know," Cogsworth says. He rubs the bits of himself that pass for hands against each other. The lacquer is peeling. "May you never find out."

*

The Beast isn't healing. If Belle wanted, she could go home. No one could stop her. She considers going home.

Belle stays.

*

"You should go," the Beast tells Belle.

"No." 

Belle settles herself in the ruins of his room. The Beast lies in the wreckage that was once a bed. Splinters of the bedframe litter the floor. The windows are broken. Snow drifts in. Motes of dust gleam in the weak winter light.

The year is coming to a close. Belle waits for the end.

*

The chip in Chip lengthens to a crack. Lumiere's flames dim. The ticking of a clock that once echoed barely sounds. Everything in the mansion is washed out. The print of the library's books is faded and difficult to discern. The books themselves are foxed at the edges where they're not crumbling.

Winter continues untouched by spring's softening edge.

"What can I do?" Belle asks.

"This place needs light," Lumiere tells her. His smile, once kind, has gone strange with regret. "It needs life."

*

"Get out," the Beast says when Belle visits him next. He's collapsed. The rose is only a tiny bit red. The rest of it is moldering, dead or dying. Only the sharp thorns of the stem are untouched. "Go away. _Leave_."

Belle pulls up the glass. She places it gently on the floor. She picks up the rose, thorns biting into her hand.

She bleeds red, and the rose bleeds with her.

*

There's a house in the middle of the woods. Outside, roses bloom even in winter. They're beautiful, dark red the color of freshly spilled blood. Inside lives a Beast with his loyal servants. Part of the house is in ruin; part of it in fresh repair. Warm light glows from the front windows.

If you only look from one side, it's whole. It's beautiful. It looks inviting and warm, bursting with life.

Won't you come inside?


End file.
